Ethics Supplementary Lecture Notes PDF

Ateneo de Zamboanga University School of Liberal Arts Philosophy Department (Supplementary Lecture Notes) “An unexamined life is not worth liv...

Ateneo de Zamboanga University School of Liberal Arts Philosophy Department (Supplementary Lecture Notes) “An unexamined life is not worth living” Socrates Preliminary Notions: A. Etymological: The word ethics comes from the Greek word “ethos” ,meaning : custom, a habitual way of acting character, a meaning that the Latin terms “mos” , “moris” also connote. Among the Greeks , “ethics” meant what concerns human conduct/human action. B. Descriptive: Largely a concern of cultural anthropologists and sociologists. Its task is to describe how some person, members of a culture or society address all sorts of moral issues, what customs they have, and so, how they are accustomed to behave. C. Met-ethics: Concerns itself with the meanings of moral terms: like good and bad, right and wrong, duties and rights, etc. Hence the concern is with the understanding of the use of these terms, their logical forms and the objects to which they refer. Sometimes the concern of meta-ethicist is even more fundamental: What is the possibility of moral philosophy. D. Normative: Ethics is normative, not in the way that logic is, namely. With regard to the correctness of our thinking, but with regard to the goodness of our living, the right orientation of our existence. It is a practical science, not simply because it treats human action, but also because it aims at guiding this. Moralists are not content to describe human conduct: they intend to judge and rectify it. They propose rules and give warning, they provide counsels and issue precepts, so as to make clear to men the path of right living and to help them walk upon it. E. Normative can be understood in two ways: 1. Teleological (Telos) End, Goal, Fulfillment, Realization. It puts more emphasis on morality as the attainment of man’s end, fulfillment and happiness. One can have in mind the art of living, the technique for acquiring happiness. The terms good and bad has the teleological connotation of that which is in conformity or not with the goal.Therefore good and bad signify fulfillment completion, perfection or not. 2. Deontological: (Deon)They put more stress on the aspect of moral duty and obligation. It can be understood as the science which is concerned what is worthy of a Human Being. To liver rightly will not then be the equivalent of: to live happily, but: to live as one should. Thus, right and wrong has a deontological implications which refer to morally binding and obligatory. Therefore, the right action is that which we ought to do or ought to have done, the wrong action that which we ought to refrain from or ought to have refrained from doing. F. The need to study Ethics: 1. Ethics makes clear to us why one act is better than the other. 2. Ethics contributes an orderly social life by providing humanity some basis for agreement, understanding some principles or rules of procedure. 3. Moral conduct and ethical system both of the past and of the present, must be intelligibly appraised and criticized. 4. Ethics seeks to point out to men the true values of life. G. Assumptions of Ethics: 1. Man is a Rational Being 2. Man as Free H. The Objects of Ethics: 1. Physical: The doer of the act. 2. Non Physical: The act done by doer. Human acts- are said to be the formal objects of ethics because they have moral value. Acts of man: Involuntary natural acts, Voluntary natural acts, Amoral and Neutral Acts. I. Classification of Human Acts 1. A. Moral or Ethical Acts: These are human acts that observe or conforms to the standards or norms of morality.  Ateneo de Zamboanga University School of Liberal Arts Philosophy Department B. Immoral or unethical Acts: These are human acts that violate or deviate from the standards or norms of morality. J. Human Will: Moral acts stem from the human will that controls or influences the internal and external actions of man. The will stirs a person to act or hampers him from acting. It colors the motives for his engaging or disengaging in a certain action. Living against all odds, hoping in he midst of hopelessness, finding meaning in great loss, selfless sacrifice for others-these are just few cases that demonstrate the power of the will to motivate the human soul for goodness, hope and determination or the reverse. It is this art of the soul that affects the freedom and reasoning of the individual The will is the agency of choice. The will may prompt reason to overpower passion or on the other extreme, arouse passion and allow it to overrun reason. As such, the will is a potential force for both good and evil. The strength and weakness of the will determines the strength and weakness of a person’s character. Thus, the will affects one’s action, and that therefore, it must be brought closer to reason and to the proper sense of morality and goodness. It is morality which directs the will to its proper choice through the instruction of the moral sense which is borne out of human experience. K. ELEMENTS of Moral Dimension a. Action: It is the moving of oneself and taking concrete means in view of the goal or end, which is not yet but which somehow ought to be. It requires man to take the means and to set into motion a course of events, starting from himself and moving into the world, toward what ought to be , toward some future state of being, which eventually includes himself and the world. Tis moral end or goal needs to be made m0ore precise, but in any case, morality is primarily man taking up action, doing something, realizing something which ought to be. b. Freedom: Morality requires man to act , to realize what he must be and what his very being ought to be. Morality therefore, presupposes freedom of action. Freedom of choiceof the means, Freedom of choice of intermediate goals, Freedom to follow or not man’s ultimate end, the freedom to determine onself to be truly he is. c. Judgment: Action can be judge as good or bad; right or wrong, which can be classified as the norms of morality, which refers to some ideal vision of man, an ideal stage or perfection of man, which serves as the ultimate goal and norm. In this light, the good seems to be the kind of ultimate norm, the measure of the ultimate meaning and worth of man’s existence. ( Norms: Technical, societal, Aesthetic, Ethical/Moral) d. Universality: The law of universality: “Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law, that is: Action is moral in so far as one can say that any man in one’s place should act in the same way. Morality therefore, of its very nature, is infinitely open and inclusive of any and every human person, placing man in the context of the community of all fellow human beings. For this reason, equality and justice are the direct corollaries of moral experience. e. Obligation: The state of being bound or required to do or not to do, a categorical imperative. In this sense, the good is universally binding and obligatory on man so that his being is an “ought-to-be” and an “ought to act” in view of his very being. That is the “good”. L. Components of Moral Acts: a. Intention: or motive of the act b. The means of the act c. The end M. Morality and Religious Belief: ”Morally right” means “commanded by God,” and “morally wrong means “forbidden by God” a. Advantages of the Theory: i. Religious belief provides meaning to morality ii. Settles once and for all the problem of subjectivity/objectivity of ethics: Ethics is not merely a matter of personal feelings or social customs. iii. Suggests an answer to the perennial question: Why bother about morality? Because the day of final reckoning you will be held accountable. b. Difficulties with the Theory: The theory may seems to lead to impious result.  Ateneo de Zamboanga University School of Liberal Arts Philosophy Department N. Self Determination as Foundation Of Ethics: The source and ground of all ethics is that the capacity of man for self-determination, the capacity to go beyond what he is as he finds himself at the start, the capacity to deliberate, to make plans, to make decisions, to act, to adopt a way of life: that power of causality in man called “moral-will”. Question for moral will: “Why be good, when everyone else is not?” a. Cynicism: The moral endeavor is considered as mere illusion o sheer duplicity. b. Stoic Affirmiation of moral project despite all adversities: deny the reality of mral evil itself and think of it as reducible to manageable human proprtions eventually to be overcome by human progress. MORALITY/ETHICS “the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation.” (Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 10th ed.) “the study or science of morals” (Chambers Encyclopedic English Dictionary) “Ethics” used synonymously with “morality” but it is not quite the same with morality. Ethics is a branch of philosophy (moral philosophy) that examines the moral standards of an individual or society, and asking how these standards apply to our lives and whether these are reasonable or unreasonable. “Morality” refers to the standards that an individual or group has about what is right and wrong conduct, good and evil, and the values embedded, fostered or pursued in the act. “Moral standards include the norms we have about the kinds of actions we believe are morally right and wrong as well as the values we place on the kinds of objects we believe are morally good and morally bad.” (Velasquez, Business Ethics, p. 9) VALUES Values are qualities that are of worth, of importance. “Moral values can usually be expressed as statements describing objects or features of objects that have worth, such as ‘Honesty is good,” “Injustice is bad.” (Velasquez, p. 9) Max Scheler: values are objects of our intentional feeling. “values are caught, not taught” Question: are values objective or subjective? Whether value reposes in the object or is a matter of how we feel towards it. Scheler: values are objective, a priori. GOOD AND EVIL Good and evil in ethics are to be distinguished from physical/natural good or evil, because they presuppose freedom and responsibility. Scheler: good and evil are moral values. Positive: good. Negative: evil. FREEDOM Freedom and responsibility are correlatives. Two meanings of freedom and responsibility: 1. Free choice (horizontal freedom) and accountability 2. Fundamental option (vertical freedom) and response-ability. FREEDOM OF CHOICE I am the source of my action. I am free from external coercion Choice of goods RESPONSIBILITY Because I am the source of my action, I am accountable or answerable for it.  Ateneo de Zamboanga University School of Liberal Arts Philosophy Department This does not mean though that my action is a responsible one. FUNDAMENTAL OPTION Refers to the direction of my choices Towards values that form a hierarchy Option of love: higher values. Option of egoism: lower values Freedom from internal constraints. RESPONSE-ABILITY The ability to give a response that meet the objective demands of the situation Answers the call of higher values. I become a responsible person. “Watch your thoughts, they become words. Watch your words, they become actions. Watch your actios, they become habits. Watch your habits, they become character. Watch your character, they beconme your destiny.” ANONYMOUS Ethics Ethics is a branch of philosophy that examines the moral standards of an individual or society, and asking how these standards apply to our lives and whether these are reasonable or unreasonable. The application of ordinary human moral and ethical considerations in a business setting. “Application”: Like medical ethics, environmental ethics, business ethics is applied ethics. Business: any or all-economic transactions between individuals, between individuals and profit-making organizations, and between profit-making organizations and other such organizations. “Moral (Latin) and ethical (Greek) considerations”: How people ought to behave (to each other). Values of honesty, fairness, loyalty, justice, respect, etc. “Morality” refers to the standards that an individual or group has about what is right and wrong conduct, good and evil, and the values embedded, fostered or pursued in the act. Ethics is the “discipline that examines one’s moral standards or the moral standards of a society.” Ethics “asks how these standards apply to our lives and whether these standards are reasonable or unreasonable—that is, whether they are supported by good reasons or poor ones.”